The Trump Impeachment

[Tero]

Over a sweater, he wore a navy-blue suit, the fly of the pants unzipped. He accessorized with an American-flag lapel pin, American-flag woven wallet, a diamond-encrusted pinky ring, and a diamond-encrusted Yankees World Series ring (about which an innocent question resulted in a 15-minute rant about “fucking Wayne Barrett,” a journalist who manages to enrage Giuliani even in death).
“Don’t tell me I’m anti-Semitic if I oppose him,” he said. “Soros is hardly a Jew. I’m more of a Jew than Soros is.
http://nymag.com/intelligencer/amp/2019 ... ssion=true

[Tyrannical]

TRUMP: “You know full well that Vice President Biden used his office and $1 billion dollars of U.S. aid money to coerce Ukraine into firing the prosecutor who was digging into the company paying his son millions of dollars.” — letter to Pelosi.

THE FACTS: He’s incorrect to say that Biden, now a 2020 Democratic presidential candidate, pressed to have the prosecutor fired while the prosecutor was investigating Burisma, the energy company in Ukraine where Biden’s son Hunter sat on the board of directors. In fact, by the time Biden came out against the prosecutor, the investigation into the company was dormant.

Biden, among other international officials, was pressing for a more aggressive investigation of corruption in Ukraine, not a softer one.

Trump's team cites a video of Joe Biden from 2018. Speaking on a public panel, Biden recounted threatening to withhold a loan guarantee from Ukraine's government unless it fired the prosecutor, who was widely considered ineffective if not corrupt himself.

What Trump doesn't say is that in February 2016, a few months after Biden threatened to hold back a $1 billion loan guarantee, the International Monetary Fund threatened to delay $40 billion in aid unless Ukraine took action to fight corruption.

An investigation into Burisma's owner for money laundering, tax evasion and other alleged misdeeds began in 2012 and pertained to the years before Hunter Biden joined the board.

(Just for Tyrannical)
https://www.1011now.com/content/news/AP ... 02661.html

THE LIE: He’s incorrect to say that Biden, now a 2020 Democratic presidential candidate, pressed to have the prosecutor fired while the prosecutor was investigating Burisma, the energy company in Ukraine where Biden’s son Hunter sat on the board of directors. In fact, by the time Biden came out against the prosecutor, the investigation into the company was dormant.

THE FACTS: The Burisma investigation was not dormant, the prosecutor was warned against investigating Burisma specifically because of Hunter Biden and refused. Then Joe Biden got him fired and the investigation went dormant. Buriisma met with the 'new' prosecutor within 24 hours to talk.....

Rudy is digging up criminal activity and turning over to AG Barr. Or so he says

[Tero]

TRUMP: “You know full well that Vice President Biden used his office and $1 billion dollars of U.S. aid money to coerce Ukraine into firing the prosecutor who was digging into the company paying his son millions of dollars.” — letter to Pelosi.

THE FACTS: He’s incorrect to say that Biden, now a 2020 Democratic presidential candidate, pressed to have the prosecutor fired while the prosecutor was investigating Burisma, the energy company in Ukraine where Biden’s son Hunter sat on the board of directors. In fact, by the time Biden came out against the prosecutor, the investigation into the company was dormant.

Biden, among other international officials, was pressing for a more aggressive investigation of corruption in Ukraine, not a softer one.

Trump's team cites a video of Joe Biden from 2018. Speaking on a public panel, Biden recounted threatening to withhold a loan guarantee from Ukraine's government unless it fired the prosecutor, who was widely considered ineffective if not corrupt himself.

What Trump doesn't say is that in February 2016, a few months after Biden threatened to hold back a $1 billion loan guarantee, the International Monetary Fund threatened to delay $40 billion in aid unless Ukraine took action to fight corruption.

An investigation into Burisma's owner for money laundering, tax evasion and other alleged misdeeds began in 2012 and pertained to the years before Hunter Biden joined the board.

(Just for Tyrannical)
https://www.1011now.com/content/news/AP ... 02661.html

THE LIE: He’s incorrect to say that Biden, now a 2020 Democratic presidential candidate, pressed to have the prosecutor fired while the prosecutor was investigating Burisma, the energy company in Ukraine where Biden’s son Hunter sat on the board of directors. In fact, by the time Biden came out against the prosecutor, the investigation into the company was dormant.

THE FACTS: The Burisma investigation was not dormant, the prosecutor was warned against investigating Burisma specifically because of Hunter Biden and refused. Then Joe Biden got him fired and the investigation went dormant. Buriisma met with the 'new' prosecutor within 24 hours to talk.....

Rudy is digging up criminal activity and turning over to AG Barr. Or so he says

The Burisma investigation was over. Whatever fines were paid and the somewhat crooked CEO was cleared to return from exile. It was a young country where all kinds of crooks tried to make a buck. Burisma now guarantees gas independence from Russia and is big time gas supplier.

In an attempt to appear proper to any foreign partners as well, at that point Hunter Biden and the Polish ex-president were hired, essentially as yes men and poster boys in the company brochure. They did nothing essential, read a few financial reports.

It's as succeessful as Russian gas companies. Wait till fracking complaints, but nothing so far.

Rudy is bullshit.

[L'Emmerdeur]

Horrible smear job on the Great Giuliani. How soon till he threatens to sue them?

'A Conversation With Rudy Giuliani Over Bloody Marys at the Mark Hotel'

In addition to being the president’s free personal attorney, Giuliani, who is 75, is an informal White House cybersecurity adviser and a high-priced cyber-security contractor. In one hand, he clutched three phones of varying sizes. Two of the devices were unlocked, their screens revealing open tabs and a barrage of banner notifications as they knocked into each other and reacted to Giuliani’s grip. He accidentally activated Siri, who said she didn’t understand his command. “She never understands me,” he said. He sighed and poked at the device, attempting to quiet her.

...

As we sped uptown, he spoke in monologue about the scandal he co-created, weaving one made-up talking point into another and another. He said former ambassador Marie Yovanovitch, whom he calls Santa Maria Yovanovitch, is “controlled” by George Soros. “He put all four ambassadors there. And he’s employing the FBI agents.” I told him he sounded crazy, but he insisted he wasn’t.

“Don’t tell me I’m anti-Semitic if I oppose him,” he said. “Soros is hardly a Jew. I’m more of a Jew than Soros is. I probably know more about — he doesn’t go to church, he doesn’t go to religion — synagogue. He doesn’t belong to a synagogue, he doesn’t support Israel, he’s an enemy of Israel. He’s elected eight anarchist DA’s in the United States. He’s a horrible human being.”

...

And then there’s the Southern District of New York, the biggest betrayal of all. That was supposed to be his world, full of his guys; he ran the office for most of the ’80s. It was unrecognizable now. “If they’re investigating me, they’re assholes. They’re absolutely assholes if they’re investigating me,” he said.

As he spoke, he fixed his gaze straight ahead, rarely turning to make eye contact. When his mouth closed, saliva leaked from the corner and crawled down his face through the valley of a wrinkle. He didn’t notice, and it fell onto his sweater.

“If they are, they’re idiots,” he went on. “Then they really are a Trump-deranged bunch of silly New York liberals.” He added that he didn’t know for sure if he was being investigated at all, though subpoenas issued to Giuliani associates by the SDNY reportedly request documents and correspondence related to Giuliani, his firm, and, specifically, “any actual or potential payment” to or from Giuliani.

“If they think I committed a crime, they’re out of their minds,” he said. “I’ve been doing this for 50 years. I know how not to commit crimes. And if they think I’ve lost my integrity, maybe they’ve lost theirs in their insanity over hating Trump with some of the things they did that I never would’ve tolerated when I was U.S. Attorney.”

He thought they might be jealous of him, he said, because, in the 30 years since he resigned with thousands of convictions under his belt, the office had declined. The new guys, the ones after him, wish they were prosecuting the mob like he did, he said. They couldn’t do what he’d been capable of.

[Tero]

Among those who joined the board of directors in April 2014 were Biden, Archer and former Polish president Aleksander Kwaśniewski.[39] Biden served on the board of Burisma until his term expired in April 2019,[40] receiving compensation of up to $50,000 per month in some months.

In total, Burisma paid additional 180 million hryvnias (US$7.44 million) of taxes to avoid further criminal proceedings.[8][23] A criminal investigation was conducted if natural resources extraction licenses were issued to Burisma subsidiaries legally during the period Zlochevsky held government office. Although violations of the procedure were established by NABU, the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office missed procedural deadlines for a lawsuit and the case for nullifying licesenses was dismissed by the court.

So Burisma was charged with tax evasion and paid big fines.

April 2014 – Hunter Biden joins Ukrainian firm Burisma

Joe Biden’s younger son, Hunter Biden, joins the board of Burisma Holdings, the largest private oil and gas extracting company in Ukraine, controlled by founder Mykola Zlochevskiy, who had served as a Cabinet minister under former pro-Russian Presidents Leonid Kuchma and Yanukovych. Both administrations had been suspected of corruption, and once they were ousted, successor administrations pledging reforms targeted previous officials, including Zlochevskiy, for investigation. Allegations against Zlochevskiy center on the funding schemes he used to form the company in 2002. But cases against him stall in each instance.

An American business partner of Hunter Biden, Devon Archer, also joins the board. The company issues a press release about the Biden appointment in May (see below). The appointment draws criticism for the potential perception of a conflict of interest with Vice President Biden’s role as the White House’s point man on Ukraine. News reports later in 2014 reveal that Hunter Biden had been discharged from the Navy in February for testing positive for cocaine (clearly just months before the Burisma board appointment).

Steven Pifer is a career foreign service officer who was ambassador to Ukraine under President Bill Clinton and deputy assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian Affairs under President George W. Bush. He told PolitiFact that “virtually everyone” he knew in the U.S. government “felt that Shokin was not doing his job and should be fired. As far as I can recall, they all concurred with the vice president telling Poroshenko that the U.S. government would not extend the $1 billion loan guarantee to Ukraine until Shokin was removed from office.”

Note: Investigation of Burisma laid dormant at the time

Vitaliy Kasko, a former deputy prosecutor general who had worked under Shokin and resigned in frustration at his stymying of corruption investigations, told Bloomberg News (in a May 2019 interview) that the office’s probe into Burisma Holdings had been long dormant by the time Joe Biden issued his ultimatum in 2016. “There was no pressure from anyone from the U.S. to close cases against” Burisma owner Zlochevskiy, Bloomberg quoted Kasko as saying. “It was shelved by Ukrainian prosecutors in 2014 and through 2015,” Kasko said.

“Shokin was not investigating. He didn’t want to investigate Burisma,” Daria Kaleniuk a leading Ukrainian anti-corruption advocate, told the Washington Post. “And Shokin was fired not because he wanted to do that investigation, but quite to the contrary, because he failed that investigation.”

See also entries above: At time of British investigation in 2014-2015, Shokin’s Office sent letters to Zlochevsky’s attorneys attesting that there was no case against him.

Feb. 16, 2016 – Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin resigns, then returns to office before finally being ousted

Ukrainian news media report on Feb. 16 that Viktor Shokin resigned as Prosecutor General after months of intense criticism for failing to adequately pursue any major corruption cases. But wait … despite President Poroshenko’s public call that day that Shokin resign and the apparent submission of a resignation letter on Feb. 19, media cited a prosecutor in Shokin’s office on March 16 saying the chief prosecutor was back after a “long leave.” Finally, on March 29, the Parliament voted overwhelmingly to approve Poroshenko’s recommendation to dismiss Shokin.

The European Union issued a statement hailing his departure. The respected English-language Kyiv Post writes, “By the end of his term, he was likely one of the most unpopular figures in Ukraine, having earned a bad reputation for inaction and obstructing top cases.” The paper also says it “wasn’t able to find any public comments that Shokin made about [Burisma] during his 14 months in office.”

Feb. 18 and 19, 2016 – Vice President Biden speaks by phone with Ukrainian President Poroshenko. The Feb. 19 U.S. Embassy statement says Biden again urged the Ukrainian leader to “to accelerate Ukraine’s efforts to fight corruption, strengthen justice and the rule of law, and fulfill its IMF requirements.”

September 2016 – Case against Burisma closed

In a 2017 Q&A on the Burisma website, Zlochevskiy’s American lawyer, John Buretta, a former U.S. deputy assistant attorney general, says that a court in Kyiv ordered a case closed in September 2016 because no evidence of wrongdoing had been presented.

May 10, 2017 — Trump hosts Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Ambassador Sergey Kislyak in the Oval Office at the White House, just months after taking office and the day after he fired FBI Director James Comey. A photographer for the official Russian news agency Tass was the only journalist allowed into the meeting. The Washington Post reported the following week that Trump had “revealed highly classified information” that “jeopardized a critical source of intelligence on the Islamic State.” On Sept. 26, 2019, the Post reported further that Trump told the Russian officials that he “was unconcerned about Moscow’s interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election because the United States did the same in other countries,” and that the president even “seemed to invite Russia to interfere in other countries’ elections.”

June 8, 2017 – Giuliani meets with Ukrainian leaders

Jan. 25-26, 2019 — Giuliani and Ukraine Prosecutor General Lutsenko meet for first time, New York.

Giuliani and Lutsenko meet in New York over the space of two to three days. They discuss “the Ukrainian political situation and the fight against corruption,” Bloomberg News reports, paraphrasing Lutsenko. “Giuliani asked him about investigations into the owner of Burisma, Mykola Zlochevsky, as well as whether the U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch, was `not loyal to President Trump,’” the article says.

The two met “multiple times” during those days in New York, and Lutsenko told associates that, during their first meeting in January, Giuliani excitedly called Trump to brief the President on what he had found, the New York Times reported. Giuliani “acknowledged that he has discussed the matter with the president on multiple occasions,” the Times wrote.

Feb. 16, 2019 — Biden “very close” to announcing presidential run.

https://www.justsecurity.org/66271/time ... rainegate/

[Tero]

continued, same link

Late February 2019 — Parnas and Fruman’s quid pro quo to President Poroshenko.

At Giuliani’s behest, Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman press then-President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko to initiate an investigation of Hunter Biden and a debunked theory of Ukrainian interference in the 2016 U.S. election, the Wall Street Journal reported. They said the action would be rewarded by a state visit at the White House for Poroshenko, who was fighting a tough campaign for re-election against Zelenskyy. Prosecutor General Lutsenko also attended the meeting.

Spring 2019 — The creation of a “team”: Giuliani, Parnas, Fruman, Solomon, diGenova, Toensing and, occasionally, Nunes’s top aide Harvey.

“Parnas became part of what he described as a ‘team’ that met several times a week in a private room at the BLT restaurant on the second floor of the Trump Hotel. In addition to giving the group access to key people in Ukraine who could help their cause, Parnas translated their conversations, Bondy said,” according to CNN.

The team includes six regular members: Giuliani, Parnas, Fruman, John Solomon, and Washington lawyers Joe diGenova and Victoria Toensing. Nunes’s top aide, Harvey, occasionally joins the meeting as proxy for Nunes (by this point no longer chairman of the House Intelligence Committee but still its top Republican), according to Parnas (CNN; Washington Post).

March 2019 –- Ukraine Prosecutor General Lutsenko opens two investigations — one into the 2016 U.S. presidential election and a second into Burisma and Biden.

Following his meetings with Giuliani, Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko announces he is opening two investigations.

“The decision to reopen the investigation into Burisma was made … by the current Ukrainian prosecutor general [Lutsenko], who had cleared Hunter Biden’s employer more than two years ago. The announcement … was seen in some quarters as an effort by the prosecutor general, Yuriy Lutsenko, to curry favor from the Trump administration for his boss and ally, the incumbent president,” the New York Times reported (in May 2019).

So here Ukraine opens "investgation" to last to the end of Trump one term, to keep US money coming.

March 28, 2019 — Giuliani hands off disinformation packet to Pompeo.

Giuliani provides a packet of what amounts to disinformation on Biden, Burisma, the 2016 election, and Yovanovitch that he intends for Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. Giuliani later tells NBC News that he handed the packet “directly to the Secretary of State,” but CNN has cited a source saying Giuliani had given the packet to the White House so that it could be “routed” to Pompeo. The packet includes notes from interviews that Giuliani and his team conducted with Viktor Shokin and Yuriy Lutsenko (see entries in Jan. 2019).

Giuliani’s packet also includes Solomon’s March 26 email to Parnas, Toensing, and diGenova with the draft of the March 26 article, as well as a copy of Solomon’s March 20 article in The Hill.

Trump calls

Interestingly, Trump twice refers to his own contacts in Ukraine. “I have many friends in Ukraine who know you and like you. I have many friends from Ukraine and they think — frankly — expected you to win.” It’s unclear what friends he is referring to.

Zelenskyy works hard to flatter Trump and urges him several times to attend his inauguration. Trump demurs but says if he can’t make it, he will send “a great representative” at a “very, very high level.” (In the end, Trump nixed Vice President Mike Pence’s trip to the inauguration and opted to send a delegation led by Energy Secretary Rick Perry instead. See May 20-24, 2019, entry below.)

Sometime in May 2019 — Parnas and Fruman press incoming Zelenskyy administration to announce investigations on Biden, threatening aid suspension and Pence withdrawal from inauguration

Lev Parnas tells a Ukraine representative in a small meeting in Kyiv sometime in May that “the United States would freeze aid” and Pence would not attend the inauguration if Ukraine does not announce an investigation into the Bidens, according to what Parnas’s lawyer tells the New York Times his client would tell Congress. “Parnas’s lawyer … said the message to the Ukrainians was given at the direction of Mr. Giuliani, whom Mr. Parnas believed was acting under Mr. Trump’s instruction.” The other three participants in the meeting, Fruman, Giuliani, and Serhiy Shefir, deny Parnas’s account. The Times‘s description of Shefir’s denial is unusual: “Mr. Shefir acknowledged meeting with Mr. Parnas and Mr. Fruman. But he said they had not raised the issue of military aid;” and at the same time, the Times reports, “the statement from Mr. Shefir, issued in response to an inquiry from The New York Times, did not directly address Mr. Parnas’s claims that he had delivered an ultimatum about American aid in general and Mr. Pence’s attendance at the inauguration.”

June 17, 2019 — Taylor arrives in Kyiv to take up his post as chargé d’affaires. He would later tell the House impeachment inquiry that he was carrying a letter dated May 29 and signed by President Trump congratulating Zelenskyy on his election and inviting him to the White House for a meeting. But despite that and rapid reforms that Zelenskyy was making “I found a confusing and unusual arrangement for making U.S. policy towards Ukraine. There appeared to be two channels of U.S. policy-making and implementation, one regular and one highly irregular.” He was in charge of the regular channel. The irregular channel consisted of Sondland, Volker, Perry, and Giuliani. He dated the start of the irregular channel to the May 23 meeting in the Oval Office after the group had returned from Zelenskyy’s inauguration. “It became clear to me by August that the channels had diverged in their objectives,” he said in his deposition opening statement.

July 22, 2019 — Yermak speaks with Giuliani for the first time by phone. They discuss the Trump-Giuliani demands for investigations and the new Ukrainian leader’s desire for a White House meeting to affirm continued U.S. support for Ukraine. “Mr. Giuliani in television appearances over the summer had repeatedly singled out Ukraine over corruption, putting pressure on Mr. Zelensky’s new administration. Yermak called Mr. Giuliani to ask him to tone it down, according to a person familiar with the call. Mr. Giuliani in response suggested that Ukraine investigate Hunter Biden’s relationship with Burisma,” the Wall Street Journal reports (on Sept. 26).

Sept. 1, 2019 — Vice President Mike Pence, standing in for President Trump at a World War II commemoration in Warsaw, meets with Ukrainian President Zelenskyy, who raises the question of the hold on military assistance. Sondland and Morrison also attended the meeting. Afterwards, Sondland has a brief side conversation with Zelenskyy aide Yermak and tells him that the aid likely would not be released until Ukraine publicly announced the investigations. Sondland then relays the conversation to Morrison, who passes it on to Bill Taylor, the top U.S. diplomat in Ukraine on an acting basis as chargé d’affaires. Taylor then raises the specter of a quid pro quo in a text message to Sondland and Volker: “Are we now saying that security assistance and WH meeting are conditioned on investigations?” Sondland replies only, “Call me.”

In their call, Taylor says in his testimony, Sondland told him “that he now recognized that he had made a mistake by earlier telling the Ukrainian officials to whom he spoke that a White House meeting with President Zelenskyy was dependent on a public announcement of investigations — in fact, Ambassador Sondland said, everything was dependent on such an announcement, including security assistance. He said that President Trump wanted President Zelenskyy ‘in a public box’ by making a public statement about ordering such investigations.”

Sondland, in a declaration modifying his original testimony during a deposition in the House impeachment investigation, also said there was a question of whether the required announcement could come from Ukraine’s new prosecutor general, but that he (Sondland) realized soon thereafter that it had to come directly from Zelenskyy.

[Tero]

July 25

July 25, 2019 — Trump and Zelenskyy speak by phone for the first time since the call on April 21.

The two presidents have their second conversation from 9:03 to 9:33 a.m. U.S. Eastern time (4:03 to 4:33 p.m. in Kyiv). An English-language press release issued by Zelenskyy’s office about the call says:

“Donald Trump is convinced that the new Ukrainian government will be able to quickly improve [the] image of Ukraine, complete investigation of corruption cases, which inhibited the interaction between Ukraine and the USA. He also confirmed continued support of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine by the United States and the readiness of the American side to fully contribute to the implementation of a Large-Scale Reform Program in our country.”

The two presidents “agreed to substantively discuss practical issues of Ukrainian-American cooperation during the visit of the Ukrainian head of state to the United States,” the release continued.

Zelenskyy had been hoping for a warm reception from the U.S. president and a White House meeting as an important signal to affirm continued American support for Ukraine’s war against Russian forces controlling the country’s east and for comprehensive reform and economic development efforts. Ukraine advocates in the U.S. also had thought a White House invitation would be forthcoming any day, but it was never scheduled.

On the morning of the call, Volker texts advice to Yermak: “Heard from White House-assuming President Z convinces trump he will investigate/ “get to the bottom of what happened” in 2016, we will nail down date for visit to Washington. Good luck!”

An intelligence community whistleblower complaint revealed in September prompted a flurry of revelations about the conversation until the declassification of a rough transcript of the call.

Before the release of the transcript, Trump admits he discussed Biden on the call (see Sept. 22 below) and says U.S. funding for Ukraine is at stake (see Sept. 22-23 below).

Sondland has said he spoke with Trump right before the President’s call with Zelenskyy. And the day after, Sondland met with Zelenskyy in Kyiv for about an hour.

U.S. officials who listened in on the call include Secretary of State Mike Pompeo (by his own subsequent admission), reportedly Vice President Mike Pence’s national security adviser retired Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg, Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, and Tim Morrison. The whistleblower complaint says approximately a dozen U.S. officials listened in on the call, including State Department Counselor T. Ulrich Brechbuhl. The department has denied Brechbuhl was on the call or had any readout of it. The Pentagon stated that no Defense officials were on the call. Hugo Gurdon, Washington Examiner, said after a November interview with Trump that the President said there were 17 people on the call, including junior staff.

Notably, neither then-National Security Advisor Bolton nor White House Chief of Staff Mulvaney were on the call, an unusual circumstance considering they usually monitor presidential calls with foreign counterparts. The two were on opposite sides of an internal White House feud over whether to acquiesce to President Trump’s campaign to press the Ukrainian government for an investigation of Biden, with Bolton opposed and Mulvaney facilitating with steps such as setting up the May 23 Trump meeting with Perry, Sondland and Volker, and scheduling the July 25 call. Bolton, a longtime hawk on Russia who wanted the U.S. to proceed with its aid to Ukraine, reportedly opposed the call and tried to get it postponed. Even though both Mulvaney and Bolton were in Washington the day of the call, Mulvaney sent his own national security adviser, deputy chief of staff Rob Blair, to monitor the call, and Bolton sent his deputy, Charles Kupperman, according to the Wall Street Journal.

The same day, OMB issues the first formal notice to withhold security aid from Ukraine, according to The Hill, which cites a summary document prepared by Democrats on the House Budget Committee.

Shortly before the call, at 2:31 p.m., Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Laura Cooper’s staff receives an email from the State Department saying the Ukrainian embassy and the House Foreign Affairs Committee are asking about security assistance to Ukraine, Cooper told the House inquiry, saying she had been unaware of the email at the time. The State Department sent a second email at 4:25 p.m. saying, according to Cooper, that Congress “knows about the FMF situation to an extent, and so does the Ukrainian embassy.” The same day, a member of her staff receives a query from a Ukraine embassy contact “asking what was going on with Ukraine’s security assistance,” Cooper said. Because the staffer isn’t aware of the OMB notice of a delay that day, the staffer tells the Ukrainian official that DoD is moving forward on the USAI funding, but recommends the embassy check with State regarding the FMF portion, Cooper said.

July 26, 2019(updated) — Volker, Sondland, Taylor and U.S. Embassy Political Counselor David Holmes meet with Zelenskyy in Kyiv.

The four met first with Bohdan, Zelenskyy’s chief of staff, and then with Zelenskyy. Holmes later told the impeachment inquiry that, “During the meeting, President Zelensky stated that, during the July 25th call, President Trump had, quote, ‘three times raised some very sensitive issues’ and that he would have to follow up—he, Zelensky—would have to follow up on those issues when he and President Trump met in person.” Holmes testified that he concluded after reading the transcript of the July 25 Trump-Zelenskyy call that “sensitive issues” referred to investigations of the Bidens and Burisma.

[L'Emmerdeur]

Don't try to confuse him with the facts. It simply will not work.

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There's an excellent article in Slate about the actual rules of how a Senate impeachment trial takes place versus McConnell's plans. Though an absent member couldn't abide Slate, this piece is written by a respected Yale law professor.

'Who’s Really in Charge of the Senate Impeachment Trial?'

Sen. Mitch McConnell supposes that it’s up to him to determine the way President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial will proceed in the Senate.

“Everything I do during this, I’m coordinating with the White House counsel,” he declared last week, and pledged to use his power as majority leader to assure Trump’s triumphant acquittal.

But McConnell is wrong: It is Chief Justice John Roberts, not the majority leader, who will be making all the key decisions.

This is the plain meaning of the Senate’s “Rules of Procedure and Practice” currently in force for the conduct of impeachments. These rules explicitly provide that the chief justice “shall” preside over the trial, that it is the “Presiding Officer” who “shall direct all forms of the proceedings,” and that he may “rule on all questions of evidence including, but not limited to, questions of relevancy, materiality, and redundancy of evidence.”

Roberts’ powers are not unlimited. The rules explicitly grant “any member of the Senate” the right to object to Roberts’ evidentiary decisions, and if the chief justice stands firm in his opinion, a senator may demand “a vote of the Members of the Senate” on “any such question”—with a simple majority sufficient to overturn Roberts’ ruling. Nevertheless, the Senate’s authority is strictly constrained by the rules it has itself established. While it can reverse particular evidentiary rulings, it can’t bar anybody from appearing as a witness. Instead, it is up to the lawyers representing the House and the president to make these critical decisions, with the proviso that “witnesses shall be examined by one person on behalf of the party producing them, and then cross-examined by one person on the other side.”

To further assure a fair trial, the rules also expressly guarantee the president the right to testify on his own behalf. With the chief justice in the chair, Trump will be in a position to make his case, but not to pontificate, since the House lawyers can cross-examine him. The Rules also explicitly consider a scenario in which Trump boycotts the entire proceeding and refuses even to allow a legal team to represent him. In this case, “the trial shall proceed, nevertheless, as upon a plea of not guilty”—and the Senate should presume the president innocent unless the House can provide compelling evidence of his guilt.

[Tero]

I think this may be the source of Tyrannical info.

http://www.freerepublic.com/tag/*/index

[L'Emmerdeur]

Yes, the narrative of disinformation he's promoting is all over that and similar wingnut sites, and One America News Network wants to be seen as the flagship of the flapdoodle flotilla.

Come one, come all, the Great Giuliani is going to perform amazing feats of mountebankery by proxy that will astound and befuddle the nasty un-American libs, and no joking.

[Tero]

Another Tyrannical source www.oann.com, featured in Youtube if you do not want that link open
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZM6Cib ... e=emb_logo

[Tero]

20191224_160817.jpg (39.56 KiB) Viewed 2035 times

[Tero]

Drunken Rudy and the Jew Soros

[Tero]

https://www.politico.com/news/2019/12/2 ... tal-089629

[Tero]

there

Perhaps the most delicate matter to confront Senate Republicans was the idea of quickly dismissing Trump’s impeachment and effectively skipping a trial. Such a move gained popularity in the fall among Trump’s allies and was becoming a headache for GOP leaders who knew they lacked to votes to do so.

As part of a small group of GOP senators that visited the White House shortly before Thanksgiving, Lee delivered a message that once seemed counter-intuitive: A trial could be good for the president.

“The president's supporters were privately and publicly saying ‘hey we should just dismiss, the Senate should just dismiss the whole thing,’” Lee recalled of the internal deliberations. “I don't think that's a good idea. I think it's poor form. I think we need to hear arguments and review evidence.”

Lee has also expressed to the White House that there's “no reason” for the president and his team to make any decision on witnesses until the trial has begun and they can see how senators “are responding to the arguments” in the initial round of the trial.

After weeks of discussions with Cipollone, Trump and others, Lee says that things are in a good place, so much so that he believes the White House doesn’t need to bring in outside counsel or anyone else to whip the trial strategy into shape.

“The president’s in very good hands,” Lee said.